Keep in mind one factor that I don't see anyone mentioning. It's a hell of lot easier for the price of bitcoins to triple than it is for triple the number of people to mine coins. So between oh yay, the price went up and oh crap more people are mining, which is more likely to happen? Your decision should be based at least 90% of the price of bitcoins in USD at the time.

Btw since about 5 years ago, I've been using my PC to heat my room overnight in the winter cuz I have 2 outward facing walls so it gets down to like 58F normally but I usually ran something stupid overnight like a movie on a loop or virus scan. My old PC put out a lot of heat at idle too rofl.

I also reversed the front 200mm fan so it was exhausting out of the case.

At first I had the side panel with the 4x120mm fans exhausting out of the case. However, at that point I had 2x200mm fans (one on top and one on front) and the 4x120mm fans all exhausting. The only intake fans were the 120mm in the back and the cards themselves (and I assume the PSU). The temps still rose to > 80C on two of the cards and I decided to reverse the 4x120mm fans on the side panel to be intakes.

That made almost no different, maybe 1C or so, but the two "problem" cards would still run in excess of 80C.

I had the case standing upright, and the worst card was of course in the Device 0 slot at the top, so I decided to lay the case on its side. Still no change.

The only thing I haven't tried is reversing the side panel again to be exhaust, while it's laying on its side.

I'm at a loss at this point, and just removed the 4th card. With the 4th card removed and 1 PCI slot between each of the cards, I can run them at 70% fan, with the side panel fans at 50% and the cards all stay right at 70C.

At this point, I'm suspecting that the cards are touching and the fans aren't running. It's the only explanation I can come up with, but I would think that would cause a lot of noise.

I'm open to suggestions.

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I have three 5830s running in a antec 1200 case on a evga s58 sli mobo.

Since I can't fit another card in the case the way the mobo is set up.... what is the currently cheapestway to run 4 5830s or 5850s ceaseless..... I'm thinking of doing on in the garage with a boxfan on it.... figured go with the sempron chip.. but do I really need a $200 mobo everyone has been saying this: